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We're gonna win the cup one day

11 November 2021

It's a later slot for Daubney Diary this week but that doesn't mean he's overcome the disappointment of our elimination from the cup. It would be easy to put the blame on a certain Town fan for his quite brilliant text message before the Kidderminster game of "It's about time we went beyond the FA Cup semi-final. Fed up of being the nearly boys."

Scott's expectation inflation is only partly at fault. Despite all the faffing about added to the presentation of the draw over the years, one of life's purest pleasures is the thrill of waiting for Town's number to be plucked out of the bag. Even if, for every spine-tingling "Liverpool, will play.... number 45, Grimsby Town" there have been dozens of more mundane ties, it retains the purity of an entirely random event, untainted by the ills of modern football. In short, bugger, we're out of the cup. 

Of course, all that randomness goes out the window when it comes to picking the ties for the telly. Whomp, there it is. Salford v An Other FC has been selected for live coverage and an injection into the cash strapped coffers of the plucky hosts. Boo, FA Cups, we're better off out of it.

In time-honoured tradition, an early exit gives us the opportunity to concentrate on the league. If this was really true, masters and PhDs of the early cup exit like Town would have a trophy room full of league pots instead of just six. The quest for a conference pot continues this Saturday. We'll have a rough guide available this afternoon for an Aldershot team that got a right spanking on Tuesday night. This result is sure to have set those expectation inflation dials moving in Town brains. Daubney would snap your hand off right now if offered a scruffy 1-0 win.

It's an interesting trope that one: "I'd have taken that if offered it beforehand". Who's going around offering people football results like that? I've never been approached anyway. Where were we? Oh yes, not one of those six titles was won in fantasy Premier League style. Proper football titles require a few spells when the results are rubbish and players and fans alike have to dig in. So if a bloke in the pub offers you that scruffy win at Aldershot between now and Saturday at 3pm, take it.

Having muted the trolling social media accounts at the Telegraph, the main source of GTFC news these days is the official site. Hursty has said nowt on there yet about the game yet so I'll sign off with a link to our bumper postbag and one of the finest photos from the official site in some time: